The Fast and the Furious: Operation El Kemino, Tokyo Edition

[C-Fan]

I'd like to go hamburgers on some alpine stepping shuffle links with you.

[Matt K]

Thanks, guys. I think.

Good session with Dan in Saratoga (I didn't realize it at the time, but our last at our sweet library spot for the year as he'll be going back to school for a few days)

Not that many listable highlights, but there were a lot of good runs with dense shit and fearless links in them:

Vortex>Blurry Whirl rpt (one side, boo!)
Legbeater>Janiwalker>Blur rpt (shit yeah!)
Some good Spikehammers and Ripped Warriors. Very slowly getting there.

Ended by doing my cascading fearless links. The best string of them was Blurriest>Blurriest>Tomahawk>Tomahawk>PS Whirl>Spinning Whirl>Spinning Ducking Butterfly. It's cool to be able to crack off 7 fearless like it's nothing.

I also came up with an idea for different blog content that I'll start working on this weekend.

[krustykrakk]

shit

Twice.

[Matt K]

Had my first session with Dan today since he's gone back to school. We blew a lot of people's minds who had never seen footbag before, and got some good comments and questions.

Dan played really well, and seeing him back at our school spot for the first time since May further showed how much he has improved over the summer (even all of his non-footbag friends noticed), which was really cool.

My legs felt really good today, but I was getting winded pretty easily. I had a couple of good longer runs, but most of them were good but on the shorter side.

PS Whirl>PS Egg bs (been a while since I've done anything into it)
A deep Tripwalk>Janiwalker>Pdx Torque (as I shouted out "YES" during the very good flip furious set)

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

This was a nice post to read. I was looking through some really old blogs that have been dead for a while. Mainly looking for David's footblog (still haven't found it ) but I JUST stumbled on your old one. Checked out your room tour and was like "pfft! been there already!" Which is kind of ridiculous because I remember seeing your room tour a long long time ago in your blog and never actually realizing I'd see that stuff up close in real life. Anyway, Great highlights and I'm really glad you started playing again.

Seeing that you posted here was a breath of fresh air because of all the dead blogs I looked at a minute ago. I just realized how many people have tried but failed. It's a lot. I don't recommend looking back at them. Kind of depressing. But when I saw this post above, it brought me out of the negate feelings and made me realize, "well, at least I'm good friends with most of the players that still play".

PS Whirl> PS Egg bs is just bad ass, by the way.

[Matt K]

Thanks, Nick. I've also read through that older blog fairly recently, and I hardly recognize it as myself. Both the person and the footbag player that wrote it are very different from the one who writes this blog. It's a little embarrassing at times, but I'm glad it exists.

Highlights from a nearly 4 hour session with Dan (yes, four):

Superduperfly for the first time in years (one side; flip was scaring me a bit)
midstring Pixie Whirl>Stepping Whirl>Tombstone>Blurry Drifter>Blurry Whirl>Blurriest>PS Whirl>Spinning Whirl
Tombstone>Blurriest>Blurry Whirl rpt bs (first try one side, like 30th try the other, but it was the very last thing I did)

Besides that most of my runs were good. I had a solid 30 minutes where every single turn with the bag produced a great string which was really satisfying. Overall this was definitely one of my best sessions of the year.

[AlekseyV]

midstring Pixie Whirl>Stepping Whirl>Tombstone>Blurry Drifter>Blurry Whirl>Blurriest>PS Whirl>Spinning Whirl
Tombstone>Blurriest>Blurry Whirl rpt bs (first try one side, like 30th try the other, but it was the very last thing I did)

wow, huge props man, such a good run!

[Matt K]

Today is my 24th birthday. It's been a good year, both for footbag and for regular life. Thank you to all of my friends on this side who've helped to make it so enjoyable.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Yeah boiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

(stay away from hookers)

[Asmus]

Happy birthday! Or as we say in Denmark: Tillykke med fødselsdagen!

I hope you are feeling like this:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uqnl6-RXa1A[/youtube]

[Matt K]

Well, I've gone to and am back from East Coasts.

It was a really fun event, and maybe one of the most personally interesting I've ever been to.

The event was good for me mentally because it distracted me from moving apartments (which I have to do tomorrow) that I've been stressing out about. The move comes with some exciting changes (some of which will directly result in a lot more footbag playing), but it also comes with a lot of sadness and worry. It was nice to be around friends and footbag during this time, so thanks to all who didn't know you were helping me.

I did a lot of judging both days, which I was psyched to do because I enjoy it a lot, but it also resulted in the first event I've been to where I was not able to play as much as I wanted to (except events where I was forced to because of injury). I probably hovered around 4 hours of playing total over the 2.5 days which is very low for me. But, I was glad to help out, and I feel pretty good about all of our judicial decisions we came to.

The event was also unique in that I think I did my strongest playing in competition. Despite my energy being completely drained for seemingly no reason (travel + inactivity during the day + quick warmup? who knows) I managed to throw together a circle performance that totally satisfied me. I was seeded 2nd after Ken in my pool so I didn't have high hopes of moving on, and after looking at the numbers, I saw that I pulled a really strong 2nd place which I was proud of.

Other than that, I guess I played about average? My average level right now is a lot better than it was at the beginning of the year, and I did have a couple of memorable strings, but I don't think I matched many of the sessions that Dan and I have had over the past two months. I got a lot of nice compliments and props, which is always a good feeling.

Like all tournaments I'm coming away with grand ideas of where to go from here, and I think I can follow through with a lot of them. I'm entering a period of my life where I have the ability to play a lot more than I've been able to this past year, and I'm going to try to take as much advantage of that as I can. We'll see where I come out at the end.

As always, thanks so much to everyone who helped make the event as fun as it was, and see most of you at NYJ.

[krustykrakk]

It's awesome to hear about your opportunity to play more! Sorry about your worries. We can be friends and talk on the Facebook if you need an impartial, sympathetic ear. Also Also Also, I peed a little when I read that you are going to nyj. Also, more Also, see your sesame seed buns at punkin jam!

[Matt K]

I had my first solo session in a couple months. It was also the first time playing in my new apartment, which has a spacious (low-ceilinged) room for me to train in.

I took a bit of an old approach tonight; it's time to go back and strengthen all the core components. The way I've been drilling the past couple of years has been great for form and individual concepts, but not great for consistency and endurance. It's time to take this winter to get back into shape.

I dug up and old list that I used in like 2008 or 2009 that has maybe 25 drills on it that I used to run down and keep track of PRs. I blanked out all the old records and set a new baseline to work off of for the winter. I'm going to have to rework some of the existing drills, but about half of them will be very good. I didn't beat all of my old records, but I wasn't too broken up about it. I'm a tad out of practice right now, and all of the old PRs were over the course of a whole summer, and these new ones were from just a few tries.

I'll keep going in this direction. Once I rework the list I'll throw it up here.

[F[uns]tylin' Eclectic]

Excellent, dude. Glad the new apartment shred spot is good! So lucky to have a spot to train this winter. I have to move a bunch of shit out of my attic and use that again. Ugh. Hatred of a space.

Your "digging up an old list" reminded me of a list I made when I lived with Ivan and Pipenberg. I remember one day, Pipenberg and I both made lists of drills in our classes. When we compared them, he looked at mine and basically said "you have no shot at hitting any of these right now" I wish I could find that paper and see if any are manageable now. I don't even think it's on this planet anymore. No chance to find that thing. Cool that you found yours. Must have been a neat little blast from the past.

Hope to see some footage from you and Dang in that shred room!

[Matt K]

Thanks, homes.

It's a great feeling to come home from a full day and just play for two hours. I haven't been able to do that for a very long time, and I'm grateful that I can do it now.

I've played solo a couple of times since last post, but it's all just drilling the same list (getting new records every night, but nothing super notable). Played with Dan today for 2 hours:

Fusion>Fog bs
Fog Rubberman
Whirlygig>Mullet bs

The drilling is paying off already. Most of my string were good to great, and all of the feeling was very good. Pixie is starting to not feel terrible; yay.

[DC Clinks]

Who invented a trick called the mullet? What the fuck.

Killin it though homez.

[isirc10]

That was a cool weekend. Thanks for coming down to PSU.

[Matt K]

Yeah!

Back from PSU for the last time this year. It was a much needed trip, and worth the drive and sore legs.

Footbag highlights:

Mobius>Shaft
Atomsmasher x15
High Stepping Pickup and Furious Pickup bs

[Matt K]

Back from Boston Salsa Shoedown Hoedown Whatevdown.

It was a fun time. I got 3rd place in the official Request contest, and 2nd in the unofficial one. I have my 3rd place salsa at home waiting to be eaten and then cleaned so I can display it somewhere.

I played pretty well for about half the time I was there, which I was satisfied with. I like the direction I've been pushing in and I'll continue to go down that route.

P.S. It's been over a year since I've been injured, so I'm pulling off the subtitle from this.

[DC Clinks]

I don't like this new title. Needs more Operations in it. Like Operation Kemburglar: Return of the McTwist or The Fast and the Furious: Operation El Kemino (Tokyo Edition).